Advance HE has commissioned a report to explore higher education providers’ (HEPs) submissions to the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). The aim is to develop a deeper understanding of providers’ excellent practice and to identify how this is best evidenced.
Dr Geoff Stoakes, an Advance HE consultant with a track record of research in higher education policy and practice and who is leading the project, said, “There is a huge amount to learn and share from providers’ submissions to the TEF which I believe can help higher education providers enhance their provision.
“Our analysis will explore the patterns and trends in excellent practices by the TEF criteria and themes across a sample of the ‘improved’ providers; and we will draw on individual provider submissions to give examples of different approaches to the enhancement of teaching provision and how this has been evidenced by providers who have demonstrated progress in the TEF since the first round of assessments.
“The analysis will offer invaluable insight for all providers in developing their teaching practices and it will support them to evidence their own excellence in their TEF submission.”
Nick Skeet, Advance HE’s Director of Membership, said, “A key driver for Advance HE is to analyse and share ‘what works’ in higher education. With so much rich data available through the TEF, this project is an exciting and positive step in the sector’s work to continuously enhance its teaching offer.”
The analysis phase of the project began in the winter of 2023 through four phases of work. These included: identifying key concepts in teaching excellence and the development of a coding framework; the coding and analysis of sample submissions; qualitative data analysis patterns to identify the most notable and repeated approaches to teaching excellence; and analysis of TEF narratives including how providers with an overall Gold award or overall Silver awards with Gold in either the Student Experience or Student Outcomes aspects have enhanced and evidenced teaching quality in their own particular settings.
Advance HE expects to publish the report in April (revised). The report will complement and add to the findings of other work in sector exploring TEF data for the purpose of enhancement.
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